Solange in Honey Magazine: A Breath of Fresh Air

in Music by tigger500 — October 6, 2009 at 12:59 pm | 4 comments

So few artists come across like human beings in interviews.  Many of them are not supposed to.

Then there are those that have the regular round-the-way image, but it is really pretentious and affected (Hi Jill!)

Solange is neither.  She genuinely seems human.

Despite being gorgeous and a Knowles, her declarations about not giving a fuck sound like, you know, she doesn’t give a fuck.  It’s amazing to me that someone so young and someone raised by Matthew Knowles (who is evil) is so believably regular.  She’s like the exact opposite of her sister, but naturally so.  I never once get the sense that she’s trying to be edgy and uncompromising, just that she is edgy and uncompromising.

Her new interview in Honey magazine reads like someone interviewed a smart young mother off the street about her life.  It doesn’t read at all like an interview of a young woman who is probably the most promising young Black woman artist in the game right now.

To wit:

One thing that’s kind of been confusing me is that I keep hearing people say ‘Oh, great you’re going natural.’ Does that mean weave-free or does that mean perm-free? Because I haven’t had a perm since I was 13. It’s interesting how much hair plays a role in your life and character and schedule. I remember when I was 13 I went through my ‘I-am-Miss-Natural, incense-burning, Bob Marley-playing, only-vintage-shop-wearing Solange.’ So of course that included cutting my perm off, being a Vegan. I didn’t quite understand yet that my hair did not define me. Then I remember being 16 and being like ‘Okay, I can still be smart and I can still have the same beliefs that I have, but I did not have to have red Rasta braids. I can do that with straight hair. I can do that with a ‘fro. I can do that with a weave down to my butt.’ That was when I first cut my hair off. When I was 18 I got a hot flash because I was pregnant with [Julez] and I was like ‘It’s hot as hell so I’m cutting this shit off.’ But this time it was definitely more so about the growth and the energy and the time I was spending. It was about to be summer, and I didn’t want to have to worry about swimming or going to the park with my son or how hair was going to fit into my life. It was too much.

or

[Y]ou probably will still see me rocking animal print as I did the other day. Someone cracked up laughing and was like ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going with flannel, leopard and stripes?’ I was like ‘I’m going to tackle my day.’

In a world with vacuous pop stars and pretentious pop alternatives, Solange is just an artist.   If her next album is as strong as Sol-Angel, she’ll join the ranks of Black woman artists like Joi Gilliam, Sy Smith, Jaguar Wright, Adina Howard, Yahzarah, and Truth Hurts who defy with graceful aplomb the commercial v. underground, pop aesthetic v. soul aesthethic paradigms that are choking the life out of Black music.

In other words, this chick is major and most people will never buy her albums.

Good for her.

Related posts:

1. Solange Sheers It off
2. New Album of Covers Revisits Aaliyah with Beautiful Results
3. Hustler Magazine: Souless beings destroying my childhood
4. Rihanna in Vogue Magazine
5. This is why I can’t have daughters: Shakur edition

Tags: Adina Howard black music honey magazine Jaguar Wright Joi Gilliam knowles matthew knowles pop solange soul sy smith Truth Hurts yahzarah